Lord Summoner's Freedom Philosophy: Grimoire of Love-Chapter 505: Royal Final Battle (2)

"Drop your weapon," she said, voice husky with unshed smoke. "Or I will break you against that pillar."

"Doubtful," he murmured, but he made sure the respect in his eyes reached her. She fought despite fear; he honored that.

He drew a measured breath, letting Arturia’s white mana soak his muscles, a cool bloom under the skin. The glaive hummed. Up close the runes looked like fresh snowflakes caught on silver branches—beautiful, yes, but also a reminder of burdens carried farther than most human bodies could endure. Griselda’s spark flowed beneath, wanting release.

Not yet.

The mage lurched. Reflex more than intent spurred him; Lyan’s arm snapped out, palm facing, Griselda’s power trickling down invisible wires to the cracked orb. A thin arc leapt from the relic to his fingers, and in that instant he felt the star-magic recoil, felt the artifact scream as if a violin string were twisted past breaking. He wasn’t destroying it—merely grounding its tantrum, siphoning off enough charge that it dimmed to a low whine.

The mage gasped, relief and horror braided together. Eyes wide, he looked at his tormented relic as though seeing it for the first time. Lyan met his gaze. "Let it go," he said quietly. "It’s done with you."

For a heartbeat the mage seemed willing—then the King snarled, "Cowardice infects even my arcanists. Perhaps I should have bound your tongue as well as your wrists, Iskar."

The mage flinched as though struck. Lyan felt fury coil cold around his heart. This was beyond arrogance; it was a monarch starving on his own reflected power, demanding others swallow the poison in his stead.

(Light him up,) Griselda urged, sparks licking hungry across the thought.

Not yet.

Instead Lyan shifted, placing himself directly between the King and the mage—a silent promise of shelter. He had not planned on protecting an enemy artifact-handler today, but sometimes battlefields rewrote plans in blood and sweat.

Ara—brave Ara—took a half-step forward, gauntlet arm hanging low as if suddenly too heavy. Her after-images fluttered like wounded doves, scattering feathers of light that winked out before hitting the floor. She looked from her father, to Lyan, to her trembling fist, and in that triad of gazes she seemed to weigh nations.

Kassia perceived her sister’s waver and rasped, "Ara, focus!" Yet even she could not keep the quiver from her own voice. The mirror blade’s reflection showed a line of damp at the edge of her eye; the sword could double images, but not conceal them.

"I am focusing," Ara whispered. But the statement lacked conviction, and hope peeked beneath it like sunrise under storm clouds.

Lyan seized the opening. "Ara, Kassia—look at him." He jerked his chin toward the King. "He would burn every city you’ve sworn to guard just to feel taller for a moment. You don’t owe that."

The King’s reply was a guttural snarl that cracked with static. A fresh pulse of golden energy flared from the crown, and Lyan watched, horrified, as thin filaments of that power slithered like spiders’ silk across the air and latched onto both princesses’ weapons. Their relics brightened, hungry. Ara gasped as the gauntlet jerked her arm upright. Kassia’s sword edge glowed white-hot, reflections jittering. The relics fed on the crown’s tyrannical current, rewriting the sisters’ hesitation into mandatory aggression.

Lyan’s stomach dropped. He had misread the chain: it wasn’t fear that shackled them, but a literal arcane leash. The King could override their bodies when their minds balked.

He took one sliding step back, gauging distance, already mapping new trajectories that would disable rather than maim. A low growl curled behind his ribs—anger blooming through Arturia’s calm, dovetailing with Griselda’s sparks. Even Lilith’s usual velvet laughter went razor-thin.

(Shatter his crown,) she whispered. (Free the kittens.)

Without breaking eye contact with the oncoming princesses, Lyan flicked two fingers. A current of lightning leapt from the glaive, not to strike but to arc around him in a tight ring like a thrown lasso. The halo of white-blue fire hissed across marble, scorched a black circle, and then dissipated—nothing more than a visual warning. Both princesses skidded instinctively to avoid the corona, which bought him one precious heartbeat.

He used it to speak, loud enough that even the Queen—eyes frantic behind silver film—could hear. "The relic obeys the strongest will in contact. I won’t seize yours, but I can starve them. Drop the weapons and walk."

Ara’s gauntlet trembled, fingers spasming as if a puppeteer tugged every string but the thumb. "We can’t," she breathed. "The oath—"

"Is only as strong as the skin that wears it," Lyan finished for her. He’d cracked dozen similar geasa in his years as Astellia’s spearpoint: ancestral blades that drank heir blood, cloaks that strangled deserters, rings that seared betrayal brands into bearers’ tongues. Every one of those relics shared a simple weakness—overload the binding and the tether snapped before the soul did.

Behind the princesses the Queen stirred, white gown whispering. For the first time her gaze left the fissuring futures only she could see and settled on her daughters—truly settled, with maternal clarity. Lyan saw tears pool in her eyes, reflecting lightning flashes like twin moons. Her lips moved: Enough. Yet the word emerged only as a ghost of breath, stillborn by fear of the King’s wrath.

Lyan’s respect for her Sight grew even as pity folded around it. How many horrors had she predicted, powerless to prevent, every fork of possibility ending in her own silence?

But the King... oh, the King swelled on their hesitation, drawing in air like a bellows to stoke his rage. "Do you see? Even in fear they turn to me. I am the spine of this realm! I will not crumble for a gutter-born brigand who beds his way through camp followers and witches."

The insult skittered across Lyan’s composure, but he let it pass; the man was flailing for targets to blame. What truly chilled him was the glint of mania in those amber eyes, the quiver of satisfaction when his daughters jerked another half-step forward under the crown’s lash. Obsession, yes—obsession wearing a face of patriarchal duty.

(He will kill them himself once they fail,) Cynthia observed, mournful as falling snow.

That broke the stillness. Lyan inhaled—a deep pull that filled his lungs with the copper of spilled magic—and decided. No more gentle words. Mercy now meant speed, not persuasion. He would cripple the binding, break the leash, and pray whatever scars remained could heal in time.

He shifted left, feinting toward Kassia’s mirror blade. Her weapon responded to the crown’s command, swinging in a perfectly timed intercept arc meant to catch his throat. Lyan reversed, sliding right instead, and let the edge pass close enough that he saw his own reflection warping—eyes grey, jaw grim. In that distorted mirror he caught a second reflection: the King’s sneer.

Precision, then. He snapped the glaive outward; the blade kissed the mirror sword flat-on, not edge-to-edge—just enough contact to transfer a dry pop of static. Spark met scratch. Microscopic fissures raced along the mirrored surface, spidering like thin frost. Kassia gasped, shock breaking the hold for a blink.

Across from her, Ara lurched, gauntlet flaring as if sensing its twin relic falter. She swung a desperate haymaker, after-images trailing like ragged silk streamers. Lyan ducked under the primary strike, but the echo fist clipped his shoulder—ghosts carried just enough kinetic bite to bruise. He grimaced; respect surged anew. Even exhausted, her technique was water-fluid, angles crisp. In another life she might have been a captain under Wilhelmina, teasing formations with dance-like grace.

And that thought was the fulcrum: admiration tilting the blade of resolve. He would not butcher these women. He would strip the King of the tools that bound them and let them walk out under open sky.

Decision forged, he moved. The world narrowed to sound—the hiss of his own breath, the crackle of crown arcs, Ara’s sharp inhale, Kassia’s hiss through teeth, the Queen’s stifled sob. He rolled low, sweeping the butt of his glaive across the mosaic floor. The marble’s dust slicked underfoot, but he compensated, pivoting on knee, driving upward with a twist that smote the underside of Ara’s gauntlet. Not a blade-edge cut—he dared not slice her flesh—but a hammer blow meant to shatter delicate internal runes. A muffled snap answered—a rune fracturing like bone. Light sputtered. Ara cried out, cradling her arm as the gauntlet’s after-image effect sputtered, flickered, and died, leaving only her real hand trembling. She stared at it, wide-eyed, as though seeing her skin for the first time in years.

Kassia screamed—not in rage but in what sounded like relief mixed with terror. She stepped back, mirror blade raising defensively, yet her eyes darted to Ara, to the King, to Lyan, calculating and recalculating loyalties. The cracks on her sword glowed dull red, heat escaping through broken enchantments like ember light through parchment tears. It would not redirect a second lightning blast.

From the dais the King howled, crown vomiting arcs that ricocheted along the ceiling beams. One such arc licked down a pillar, scarring serpent stone to slag. The mage, still tottering, threw himself aside with a yelp.

Lyan leveled the glaive like a conductor’s baton, directing a terse crack of lightning—not at Kassia, but at the golden corona linking sword to crown. The arc severed the tether in a spray of sparks. Kassia’s sword went dead-weight; she nearly dropped it before regaining balance. Relief flooded her face so pure it stole Lyan’s breath. For one heartbeat she looked younger, cheeks softening as though the last decade of fear slipped off her shoulders.

Across the chamber the Queen exhaled a sob that turned into a broken laugh—half disbelief, half gratitude. Her Sight coronet spun faster, runes flickering as futures recalibrated away from doom. In her eyes, Lyan glimpsed a kaleidoscope of new possibilities: daughters alive past tonight, a sun rising over charred walls but unchained spirits. He nodded to her, the smallest inclination of head, and she pressed a trembling hand to her chest in silent thanks.

Yet victory was not complete. The mage still clutched the fractured orb, and the knight—silent through this chaos—now lifted that blood-red visor. Two sickly yellow eyes glowed within, hate burning bright even as steam curled from vents along his collar. He inhaled a ragged breath that rattled his armor like chains. Then, without the King’s command, he lowered his horned helm and broke into a sprint. The plates screamed, sigils igniting crimson, pumping raw speed into limbs that should have been too heavy to move at all.

"This is such a mess"

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